


Aster

by peacefulboo



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gift Fic, Post 2.16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3623748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Solitude teaches Clarke many things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rashaka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rashaka/gifts).



The journey home from Mt. Weather is slow and painful. A quiet settles over the group within the first hour as the reality of what it means to try and move the injured over the terrain settles in and the silence is only punctuated by the occasional gasp of pain as wounds are jarred, or a grunt after a tired stumble. 

Clarke stays close to her mother’s side for the first few hours. They keep silent like everyone else, and her mother eventually falls into a fitful sleep. As they get closer and and closer to Camp Jaha, Clarke finds it harder to keep her breath steady as first a sense of unease and then the slow creep of panic rises until, finally, she has to fall back. She exchanges a look with Kane, knowing he will care for her mother, and then squeezes her mother’s hand, careful not to wake her, and slows enough that the rest of the group soon overtakes her. 

She’s amazed at how much easier her breath comes after, when her people are in front of her with only Octavia, Lincoln, and Monty pulling up the rear with her. They’re about an hour out from camp when Octavia quickens her pace a bit, links her arm through Monty’s and lays her head on his shoulder while pulling him into a quiet conversation. 

Lincoln stays at Clarke’s side and they walk in silence for a few a while. 

“There is a small river near where your first group landed. You know it, yes?” Lincoln asks. 

“The one that marks the boundary or the one with the red water weed?” 

“The smaller one, with the weed,” Lincoln replies. 

Clarke nods in acknowledgement her brows knitting together as she looks up at him, curious. 

“If you walk along the east bank for half a day, there’s a cave, a series of caves, really. There are blankets and supplies there. It’s not much, but they can help get you through when the cold sets in.”

“I don’t…” Clarke starts, but doesn’t have the energy to finish her denial. “How did you know?”

“You have the look of someone who will fly out of their skin if they don’t get away.” There’s no judgment in his words. 

“These people need me.”

“They do. And they don’t.” He doesn’t elaborate, but Clarke gets what he means. There is no shortage of capable leaders making this walk back to Camp Jaha. She is important, but ultimately expendable. They all are. 

They walk together for a few more minutes before Lincoln moves up to Octavia’s side.

***  
She wasn’t lying when she told Bellamy that she didn’t know where she would go. Lincoln has extended her a kindness that she knows she doesn’t deserve, and so after a quick trip to the dropship to get a pack together and raid some of the leftover food stuffs, she heads toward the main river, the one that marks the boundary. She wanders aimlessly in a stupor for the next few days, eating only when her hunger turns to light headed nausea, but she refuses to think, to process anything that doesn’t have a direct impact on her survival. 

She knows the Trigadekru are in the trees. She knows that they are always watching, and there’s even a part of her that considers trying to provoke them, but one thing becomes very clear after the first few days. 

She wants to live. 

She doesn’t deserve to live, but she wants to. And she will. 

It takes her another week, and the first light snow of early-November, before she’s ready to look for Lincoln’s cave. 

It’s harder to find than he made it sound. There is more than one cave along the tributary, and though most are too small for someone Lincoln’s size, others are not.

In the end, it’s easy to identify Lincoln’s cave, because Lincoln is already there. 

“I didn’t know the cave came with your presence,” Clarke says, keeping her face as neutral and cold as she can. 

“I’m not staying,” he assures her. 

“Why did you come?” 

“I was just dropping off some supplies.” He holds up a large pack in his hand as proof. “And making sure you are still alive.”

“Does anyone else know I’m here?” Her voice cracks as she asks. Sometime in the last few weeks she has become terrified of seeing her people. 

“I didn’t know you were here,” he replies. “But no. Your secret is safe.”

“Will you be back?”

“That is up to you, heda.”

“I am no one’s heda,” she spits out, the word bitter and angry on her tongue.

“You can choose to leave your people, for a time or forever, but you are still their heda. You are still my heda.”

“I didn’t ask for that.” The brief flash of anger is replaced, once again, by oppressive despair. 

“But you did, Clarke.” His tone isn’t cruel, but the truth pierces. 

“I’d like to be alone now.”

Lincoln nods and moves to leave. She calls out to him before he crosses through the small mouth of the cave and he stops and turns back to her. 

“Thank you. And give me a few weeks.”

“Be well, Clarke,” he replies in agreement before heading out once again. 

 

Clarke sleeps through most of her first week in the cave, waking only to eat and drink a little water and to stoke the fire. After two months of going on less than four hours of sleep most nights, her body decides to shut down and heal. She wakes up a week later, refreshed and with a clarity of mind she hadn’t realized she’d been missing all this time. 

She spends most of those early days after her body has rested all it can, reading through Lincoln’s notebooks. Some of them are full of drawings of animals and plants and people, but some, the newer ones, have instructions. How to hunt and when. How and when to plant. What plants to wild craft and, maybe more importantly, which to avoid. There’s instruction on what to eat in the winter, how to set traps for hares and other small game, and how to prepare myriad tinctures and teas. He’s even included extensive notes on how to ferment foods, and make wine and mead. 

Much of the instruction is useless for her in the dead of winter, but Clarke enjoys learning it anyway. More than once she wishes she had access to the databases full of the knowledge that they’d had on the Ark so she could cross reference some of Lincoln’s notes and compare what he’s written to what was true before the Cataclysm. 

Lincoln had also left her with a few small books full of blank pages for her to make her own observations. She doesn’t write every day, the supplies are too limited, but at least once a few times a week she distills what she’s learned, what she’s seen and puts it down onto the pages. She learns a lot about herself by paying attention to what she chooses to commit to written record, and what she doesn’t. 

Unfortunately, a side effect of waking up to the world around you after days and days in a fugue state, means Clarke can feel her hunger acutely now. So she sets out traps for the winter hares and takes to the river every few days to find some freshwater clams for a stew. She learns which plants continue to live through winter and which to avoid and while she’s not in love with much of the food she finds, it’s edible and filling enough to stave off her hunger day after day. 

A few days into her third week at the cave, she wakes to a low, high-pitched whining and something nudging her hand. Before she’s fully aware, she grabs the creature and throws it at the wall of the cave. 

As soon as she is alert enough to light a torch and see what she’s done, she feels guilty. It’s just a small fox, with ears too big for its face. It stands slowly, shaking it’s head as if to clear it and then walks back toward her. He seems fine, except for how he’s favoring his right front leg. 

“Damn. I’m so sorry, little buddy. What were you doing in here?” She expects the fox to snarl back at her, but as she lays her hand on his head, he just looks up at her with his big, black eyes, and then turns his head in to nuzzle her hand. 

Against her better judgement, she pulls the small fox into her lap and inspects the paw that he’s favoring. A bit of the skin on the paw seems to have been rubbed raw and she’s relieved to see that the damage appears to have nothing to do with her. She sets the fox down and rifles through the small store of medicinal tinctures she got from Lincoln, and finds a small jar of something she thinks will help. 

He flinches when she rubs the salve into the skin but when she sets him down again so she can put everything away, he doesn’t move from her side. 

She resists naming him, sure that once he’s healed, he’ll wander off and she’ll be alone again, but even after his leg is healed, he stays by her side, both in and out of the cave. 

It’s his low growl that alerts her to the fact that she’s not alone.

“What is he called?” 

Lincoln’s voice startles her and she only just manages to not hurl the knife she’s been using to cut up the mussels she’s preparing for stew right at his chest. 

“Dammit, Lincoln. I could have killed you,” she breathes out. 

“You weren’t paying attention. I could have killed you,” he replies.

“He doesn’t have a name. I didn’t really expect him to stay,” she tells him, answering his original question. 

“He’s yours now. He should have a name,” Lincoln replies. “His family is likely dead if he sought you out - if he’s stayed with you for more than a few days.”

Clarke had figured that was the case, but it makes her sad all over again. She drops the cut up mussels into the pot of broth and then moves to the river to rinse off her hands. 

There’s a little snow on the ground, much to the fox’s consternation, and she smiles as he tries to hop from bare patch of earth to bare patch of earth, only to yelp as he lands in a patch of dirty, icy snow. She takes pity on him and picks him up, tucking him into her jacket.

“I’ll think of something,” she says. 

Lincoln has brought her salt and more ration packets and an extra blanket. And a radio.

“I told Bellamy that I’ve seen you,” he tells her as he hands her the radio. 

She would have expected to feel some sense of betrayal but instead she’s relieved. 

“Good. How is everybody?” 

“Alive. Healing. Some are fine, many are angry, hurt,” Lincoln tells her bluntly, but not unkindly. “Octavia and I have settled outside of the camp, but she visits her brother and Monty often.” 

Clarke doesn’t know what else to ask. She doesn’t know what else would be fair to ask. She left them. 

They go to bed soon after and Lincoln is gone at first light. But she sends two letters with him. 

***

Clarke thrives in the winter. She finds the snow beautiful and the quiet healing. She names her companion Aster but he tends to respond to Buddy much more frequently than his official name. She doesn’t fight it. 

After the first big snow has mostly melted, Clarke starts to consider going back to her people. Truth is, she could live this life indefinitely, her and Aster and the small river and the quiet trees. The idea of being surrounded by people again makes her more than a little nervous. 

But she does miss them. And with a little distance she is coming to terms with her choices. She’s coming to see that the choices they had were shitty and they all did the best they could. 

She aches, but she heals. 

The river is freezing but she wades in anyway. It’s a warmer day and the sun is out and most of the recent snowfall has melted. She makes quick work of bathing and washing out her clothes, before dashing back to the cave, to dry off and warm up by the fire. She uses a small piece of toweling soak up the last bits of water clinging to her skin and then wraps herself in the furs while her clothes lay on the racks she’s set up next to the fire. She takes her time pulling a bone comb through her knotted hair, leaving it down to dry fully. She’ll pull it back into a couple of braids before she goes to sleep but for now she enjoys the way it feels as it brushes the tops of her bare shoulders. 

Aster starts yelping as she pulls on a long tunic length shirt, so she picks up her knife and shushes him while keeping her eyes fixed toward the entrance of the cave. 

It’s not Lincoln this time. 

“Bellamy?” she whispers. 

“Clarke,” he states and she can’t help but shiver at how fucking reverent her names sounds as it leaves his lips. 

She stays rooted to her spot as she takes him in. He’s thinner, his hair is shorter and he looks more tired than she’s ever seen him, which breaks her heart. 

He steps toward her, his hand reaching out in front of him, but then he stops and drops his hand and looks toward the ground. His hesitance snaps her out of her stupor and she takes a few steps toward him. 

“It’s good to see you,” she tells him. And it is. She’s missed many people over the last two months, but she’s realizing she’s missed him the most. 

“Yeah?” he asks, looking up at her, still unsure. 

“Yeah,” she replies, smiling wide. 

When he smiles back, Clarke shakes her head and then wraps her arms around him. He hugs her back, tight, lifting her feet off the ground and she lets out a small laugh. 

Aster whines and bounces in circles around them but she ignores him, choosing to stay in Bellamy’s embrace, breathing him in. 

“I missed you,” Bellamy whispers, his lips against her ear. 

“I missed you, too. So much,” she replies. And she did. 

They separate a few moments later and she pulls him over toward the fire. He’s freezing. 

She doesn’t know what to ask him or what to say but he seems content to sit next to her in silence for the time being, so she follows his lead. She eventually lets her head fall to his shoulder, one hand clutching his and the other petting Aster where he’s curled up in her lap. 

“You found a friend,” Bellamy says, breaking the silence. 

“He found me,” she replies, shrugging. 

Aster looks up at the sound of Bellamy’s voice and sits up in Clarke’s lap. He stares Bellamy down for a few moments, before nudging his nose against Bellamy’s hand, stopping only when Bellamy begins to pet him behind his large ears. 

“I’m glad you had someone with you,” Bellamy replies. 

Clarke looks up at him then, much as her companion had, and does her best to read him. He looks so sad that all she wants in that moment is to try and make him smile. 

So she leans up and gently kisses him. It’s soft and hesitant, lips barely touching, mouths slightly open so they are doing little more than breathing into each other. But he doesn’t pull back, so she shifts, pressing her lips more firmly against his, eliciting a sigh from him that makes her smile against his mouth. She breaks the kiss and peers into his eyes again, assessing where he’s at. She sees shock, and a little confusion, but the sadness has been pushed back, so she nudges Aster off her lap and straddles Bellamy’s legs, suddenly very aware that all she has on is her sleep shirt. 

It doesn’t matter, though. She kisses him again, first on the lips and then trailing down his neck, laying a kiss at the base of his throat, and then back up the other side till she finds his mouth again. His hands move up to cradle the back of her head, and she shivers as he cards his fingers through her hair. 

He kisses her back and it’s like she’s never been kissed before. He’s focused and thorough and when they pull back, they’re both left breathing heavily. He drops one more kiss against her cheek, and she knows he needs a break so she lays her head against his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him hoping she can bring him the comfort he seems to need.  
The growl of his stomach makes her chuckle and pull out of his embrace. She pulls out a pack of dried berries from her stash of rations that she tries not to touch, and asks him to tell her about Camp Jaha as she goes about preparing a soup from her stock of dried fish and herbs and couple of small tubers. 

He absentmindedly plays with Aster as he tells her about the projects that Raven and Wick are working on and how the two of them have taken Monty under their wing. 

“He’s living with Miller and Harper. Miller tried to live with his dad for a while, but, you know how that goes,” he shrugs. 

And she does. You can be extremely happy your parents survived and still keenly aware that you can no longer live under their thumb. Hell, she staged a coup against her mother. 

“She misses you,” he tells her and she doesn’t need to ask who “she” is. 

“Lincoln said she’s healed well,” Clarke replies, deflecting. 

“Yeah. She’s healed and back to being a tyrant,” he says. She gets the impression he’s only half joking. 

They change the subject after that. He tells her that they haven’t heard back from Murphy or Jaha and how they don’t expect to. And that Jasper is being a dick but that everyone understands, most of the time. 

He gives a few more insights than Lincoln had, but seems to just skim the surface of what the last two months have been like. And she’s grateful. 

After they’ve eaten their fill and his yawns have begun to punctuate every other sentence, Clarke takes him by the hand and pulls him down onto her bed. He starts to protest, but she silences him with a look. Once they’re settled under the furs, he pulls her into his arms and drops a kiss on her head. 

“You need to come back, Clarke,” he tells her. He sounds so raw that she almost flinches. 

“I know,” she murmurs into his chest. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another post 2.16 fic to add to the myriad that are already around. *shrug* I hope you enjoy it anyway. 
> 
> Let me know what you think and as always I can also be found at [tumblr](http://peacefulboo.tumblr.com).


End file.
